Featured Artist: Alexandra Terleckyj

Published on September 01, 2019

Alexandra Terleckyj was born during the Second World War, in Lviv, Ukraine. Just like many others, her family ended up in post war Germany. In 1949, her family emigrated to the United States and resided in Philadelphia, PA. Alexandra attended grade school by the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Franklin Street. From an early age, she showed an interest for drawing, which her father, Dmytro Honta, encouraged.

With the opening of the Ukrainian Art Institute in Philadelphia in 1952, under the leadership of professor Petr Mehyk, she was signed up by her father for lessons.

With the untimely passing of her father in 1957, and the move to New Jersey, interrupted these studies. She attended Overbook High School, where she took art classes in addition to the other subjects. Since she was unable to attend college due to financial circumstances, she went to work as a designer in an embroidery factory. In the evenings, she took art classes at Moore College of Art.  

Then cam marriage and two children, which took time away from her art, but despite this, Alexandra managed to balance her job, her family and her devotion to art to produce a sizable body of work. She became proficient in many mediums, such as oils, watercolors, pastels, pencil, ink and even ceramics. She continued to take lessons with different teachers, but mostly it was on her own that she experimented and kept looking for subjects that would inspire her. Recently, she took classes in iconography from a monk (Fr. Damian Higgins), for she is still in the process of learning new techniques in order to expand her interests.  

Alexandra now resides in Arizona with her husband, where she is encountering new challenges in the bright sunlight of the Sonoran Desert.